Caring for a natural stone bracelet
Take it off before you shower, swim, cook with oil or put on perfume, and wipe it with a dry cloth rather than washing it. Water is not the enemy. Soap, chlorine, oil and scent are.
The five minutes that cost you a bracelet
Perfume and hand cream are the usual culprits. Spray first, let it dry, then put the piece on. Scent sitting on porous stone dulls the surface and never fully comes out.
Chlorine is worse than seawater and both are worse than rain. A pool afternoon with a bracelet on will do more damage than a year of ordinary wear.
Cooking oil finds its way into lava rock in particular, which is porous by nature.
Cleaning it
A dry microfibre cloth, run along the strand, is almost always enough. For anything stubborn, a cloth barely damp with plain water, then dried straight away.
No soap, no jewellery dip, no ultrasonic cleaner. Those are made for metal and faceted stone and they will take the polish off a soft stone and sit in the drill hole.
Silver rondelles and daisy spacers can be brought back with a dry silver cloth, used on the metal alone.
Which stones need the most care
Lava rock is porous and takes up whatever it meets. Many people use that on purpose and put a drop of essential oil on a bead, which is fine as long as you know it is permanent.
Pink jade, white jade and rhodochrosite are softer than the rest and scratch more easily. Keep them off the same wrist as a watch.
Obsidian, red agate and tiger eye are the hardest wearing and the most forgiving.
Storing it
Flat, out of direct sun, and not in a pile with other pieces. Sun fades some stone over years rather than months, and stone against stone is what causes most scratches.
Elastic lasts longest when it is not left stretched over a stand.
When the elastic goes
It will, eventually. Elastic is a wearing part, and how long it lasts depends on how often the piece is pulled over the hand rather than how old it is.
If a piece came from this bench, write to [email protected] and we will restring it. Keep the beads if it breaks, because the stone is the expensive part and the elastic is not.
Questions people ask
Can I wear it in the shower?
Take it off. Soap and hot water together will dull the stone and shorten the elastic faster than anything else you do to it.
How long should the elastic last?
It depends entirely on wear. A piece worn daily and pulled over the hand each time has a harder life than one that lives on a dresser.
Do you repair bracelets bought elsewhere?
We restring pieces that came from this bench. For anything else, write to [email protected] and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth doing.
Written at the bench in Hagerstown, Maryland. Questions go to [email protected].